Full page newspaper ads extol the virtues of Factoria in 1912 (photographed in 1952).
HOMEtown Reflections
Jeff O’Brien
FACTORIA
Photo Credit: City of Saskatoon Archives - Star Phoenix Collection - S-SP-B-669-004
“The Magic City” they called it: an industrial and residential development along the river that its promoters claimed would soon rival Saskatoon itself. Today, it’s the Silverwood Heights neighbourhood and you’d be hard pressed to find any evidence it ever existed. But once upon a time, this was the site of the greatest, most audacious dream ever
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perpetrated upon the good folks of Saskatoon. For this was Factoria. Fortunes Bought and Sold The year was 1912, and Saskatoon was riding a wave of euphoria never seen before or since. Money and people had been pouring in, transforming the city from “a few rude huts” as one writer sneeringly described
it, to the very model of a modern, major metropolis. This is the era of Saskatoon’s great real estate boom, when speculators big and small were making fortunes buying and selling land in and around the city, and when every rumoured development drew swarms of investors, eager to capitalize on the opportunity. “Buy now!” the newspapers screamed, and buy they did,
with land values climbing daily to new and dizzying heights. But the key to the future was industry. They were talking about 50,000 people here by 1915 and double that by 1920. For that we needed was factories, and lots of them. The Glass Ceiling In November of 1912, a stranger came to town. His name was Robert E. Glass.
